best-of list Archive

File Next to: Sloan, The dB’s, Minus 5 Indie label Kool Kat Musik has carved out a solid (if exceedingly tiny) niche as a purveyor of power pop, that oft-maligned subgenre of music which features sharp hooks, strong melodies, and – say its detractors – a slavish lack of originality. But even listeners who aren’t

As is typical, you won’t find a great deal of coverage of current-day Grammy nominees in the virtual pages of Musoscribe. But you will find a few things. The Mavericks are nominated in the Best Americana Album category for Mono. They also got a nomination for “Best American Roots Song” for Mono‘s “All Night Long.”

I’m always amazed and grateful that despite being a comparatively small market, Asheville draws high-end touring talent. 2015 was no exception. Among a long list of local shows, these are my Top 5 for this year: Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas – The Grey Eagle, March 12 Hernandez got her big break when she wowed

It takes a good bit more time and effort to screen a DVD or Blu-ray than it does to check out an album. With the latter, I can let the CD or record spin while I’m doing something else (I can multitask to some degree), but the former requires sitting in a comfortable chair, watching

To date, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of conducting more than 250 interviews. This year alone I did nearly fifty. And while it’s risky to pick favorites – I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed every single one – a few stand out from the rest. Here are five of ’em. Anton Barbeau I’d

This year has been another great one for reissues and compilations. As much as I delight in the discovery of new music, there remains a staggering backlog of music that has been around for years yet has escaped my notice. Or…maybe I just dig compilations of stuff I already know. Either way, here are my

2015 has been another year of wonderful musical discoveries for me. Putting the lie to the tired argument that “there’s no good music any more” (oh, shut up), my Top 5 list of new albums includes music by acts that are either (a) relatively new and/or (b) new to me, at least. There are couple

So here we are. It’s the last day of 2014. And it’s also the final day of posts looking back at my personal Best of 2014 lists. Today I’ll run down my favorite reissue/compilation/archival releases. As it happens, this is – as much as such a thing exists – my area of expertise: a significant

Yesterday I surveyed four of my favorite albums of new music from this year. There was modern psych/garage; raw Americana; punk; and classic guitar pop aka powerpop. Today I present the second half of my “top eight,” and – perhaps unsurprisingly – these four tread similar territory in musical genre-land. American Professionals – We Make

In my blog posts of last week, I surveyed some of my 2014 favorites: music-related books; DVDs; concerts; and interviews. For these last few days of the year, I’ll wrap up with a look at my favorite music of 2014, specifically new and reissued titles. Today, it’s four of my eight favorite albums of new

Admin

PLEASE NOTE: I welcome comments; I really do. But the site was getting hammered by sleazy comment-spammers, so I've had to disable the commenting feature. My apologies. Feel free to email me (my-first-name at musoscribe dot com) with feedback, though. Or, hey: why not just use my online form.